 "Xpressbees")
Xpressbees, a leading logistics firm, has raised $80 million from Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of the C$249 billion Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The new valuation of the firm after this round is $1.5 billion, an incremental increase from its previous valuation of $1.4 billion, according to sources. The company works with several e-commerce firms in the country.
This investment will be used to help drive further growth for the Xpressbees platform and support the company’s strong management team with their future ambitions. This marks Canada-based Ontario Teachers’ first investment in India from the TVG platform. TVG joins a marquee set of investors in the company including Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, ChrysCapital, Khazanah Nasional Berhard, Alibaba Group, Elevation Capital, Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners and Gaja Capital.
“We believe the logistics sector is at the cusp of technological disruption and this is the right time to expand service offerings to address the growing needs of businesses and consumers,” said Amitava Saha, founder and chief executive officer of Xpressbees. “The TVG team brings rich experience and a vast global network which will help as we scale our end-to-end platform to cater to the next level.”
Xpressbees is leveraging technology in the logistics industry with the help of its unique asset-light model tailor-made for India. The firm said it has executed this in a highly capital-efficient format. The firm said it has helped scale multiple e-commerce platforms by providing an extremely efficient logistics solution. The firm has expanded its focus across pharma, healthcare, manufacturing and many other segments.
“We are excited about the market opportunity for end-to-end logistics and supply chain solutions that can meet the needs of a diversified customer base across industries, including e-commerce in India,” said Deepak Dara, Senior Managing Director and Head of India at Ontario Teachers’.
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Through its subsidiary NimbusPost, Xpressbees is providing a SaaS-based shipping aggregation platform for SME and D2C (direct to consumer) brands. NimbusPost has become the second-largest shipping aggregator platform. Today, it has over 6,000 clients and ships through 27 local and national courier partners. The company further intends to expand its suite of service offerings through selective inorganic acquisitions. It recently acquired TrackOn to enter SME and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) courier services.
“India is a critical market for our TVG Asia strategy, where we look to lead or co-lead rounds, and Xpressbees is a culmination of one such proprietary opportunity,” said Kelvin Yu, Senior Managing Director at Teachers’ Venture Growth.
Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor on this transaction.
Xpressbees became a unicorn, a company valued at $1 billion or more last year after it secured $300 million in Series F funding round led by Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital.
The firm’s operating revenue jumped 33 per cent to Rs 2,531.5 crore in FY23 from Rs 1,904 crore in FY22, according to an Entrackr report. The company reported a net loss of Rs 180.4 crore in the last fiscal year.
India's e-tailing sector is poised to experience a fivefold growth, surging from $59 billion in 2022 to an estimated $300 billion by 2030, fuelled by value-seeking 'mass' consumers, states a report by Redseer Strategy Consultants. The report emphasises the burgeoning adoption of e-commerce in Tier-2 and beyond cities. This, combined with a growing base of 'mass' consumers and the expansion of 3PL (third-party logistics) serviceability, is catalysing shipment volumes. Consequently, these volumes are projected to rise more sharply than GMV growth.
